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Flipside Discussion / Maytag's (Completely Inconsistant) Personality
« on: August 12, 2015, 06:34:18 pm »
So, after reading the latest comic, I'm only reminded once more how I'm only here for Crest, Bern, and the supporting cast anymore. Any time that May gets brought back, my reaction is pretty much...this.
Don't get me wrong, though. It's not that I don't like Maytag. She's actually the main reason I started reading Flipside. She was an interesting, likeable, and pretty much just overall "cool" character. The recent plotline has destroyed absolutely everything I liked about the character.
More than that, though, it feels like it was done for no good reason, and it doesn't even mesh with the comic's own canon. For instance, Moss. He's cursed to see people's biggest flaws, but he called Maytag out on something she not only doesn't care about, but is doing on purpose and considers a positive trait to have...apparently. We know his curse isn't fake, which means that this unemotional Maytag can't work. Her biggest flaw was that nobody likes the real her, not that she's a slut. Then there's Bern. If she and Maytag are so close, then she should have known about it...and with her personality, there's no way she would have accepted May any more than Crest did...even less so, since she would then know that Maytag's infidelities were a matter of choice. It just does not work from a story standpoint.
It's more than that, though. Early depictions of the "new May" made her look like the medical textbook definition of a psychopath. She came off as manipulative, selfish, and uncaring about others. Since then, it feels like there's been a lot of back-pedalling going on, and it honestly just makes it worse. It rings hollow, and rather than making me feel like there's more to May than I realized, makes me feel like Brion is desperately trying to justify his favourite Mary Sue, when it's already reached the point where, quite frankly, the comic feels for me like it would be infinitely better without her*. First of all, personalities don't friggin' work like that. You don't just decide to be chipper and likeable one day, and suddenly everyone wants to be around you. As someone who had trouble making friends growing up, and tried to "re-invent myself" multiple times, and who took acting lessons for years hoping to do just that, I have to say I don't just find it unrealistic, but insulting on a deeply personal level. It also just reads like a bunch of baloney.
"Oh hey, I know that I said that I was actually a coldly calculating emotionally dead freak who only fakes being happy so people will like me and satisfy my needs, but that isn't true at all! What I meant to say was I used to be like that! But then I realized I really liked how that felt, and so now that's the real me! Or...wait...that didn't come out right either. Can I get a do-over? Can I get infinity do-overs until I say it a way that makes you like me again?" <--- That. That is the feeling I get whenever I read a Maytag chapter anymore...
*On a side note, the entire Dark Cell ark, with its nanotech and all that, is already at Bad Fanfic levels of narrative dissonance to everything else going on. Aside from the fact that I (for one) just literally don't care, because it's trying to explain an aspect of the setting, magic, which did not need an explanation, it makes everything else feel cheesy through the lens of its explanation. Like with May's personality, it's a long con bait-and-switch twist in the story that changes something that originally got me invested into something completely different.
Don't get me wrong, though. It's not that I don't like Maytag. She's actually the main reason I started reading Flipside. She was an interesting, likeable, and pretty much just overall "cool" character. The recent plotline has destroyed absolutely everything I liked about the character.
More than that, though, it feels like it was done for no good reason, and it doesn't even mesh with the comic's own canon. For instance, Moss. He's cursed to see people's biggest flaws, but he called Maytag out on something she not only doesn't care about, but is doing on purpose and considers a positive trait to have...apparently. We know his curse isn't fake, which means that this unemotional Maytag can't work. Her biggest flaw was that nobody likes the real her, not that she's a slut. Then there's Bern. If she and Maytag are so close, then she should have known about it...and with her personality, there's no way she would have accepted May any more than Crest did...even less so, since she would then know that Maytag's infidelities were a matter of choice. It just does not work from a story standpoint.
It's more than that, though. Early depictions of the "new May" made her look like the medical textbook definition of a psychopath. She came off as manipulative, selfish, and uncaring about others. Since then, it feels like there's been a lot of back-pedalling going on, and it honestly just makes it worse. It rings hollow, and rather than making me feel like there's more to May than I realized, makes me feel like Brion is desperately trying to justify his favourite Mary Sue, when it's already reached the point where, quite frankly, the comic feels for me like it would be infinitely better without her*. First of all, personalities don't friggin' work like that. You don't just decide to be chipper and likeable one day, and suddenly everyone wants to be around you. As someone who had trouble making friends growing up, and tried to "re-invent myself" multiple times, and who took acting lessons for years hoping to do just that, I have to say I don't just find it unrealistic, but insulting on a deeply personal level. It also just reads like a bunch of baloney.
"Oh hey, I know that I said that I was actually a coldly calculating emotionally dead freak who only fakes being happy so people will like me and satisfy my needs, but that isn't true at all! What I meant to say was I used to be like that! But then I realized I really liked how that felt, and so now that's the real me! Or...wait...that didn't come out right either. Can I get a do-over? Can I get infinity do-overs until I say it a way that makes you like me again?" <--- That. That is the feeling I get whenever I read a Maytag chapter anymore...
*On a side note, the entire Dark Cell ark, with its nanotech and all that, is already at Bad Fanfic levels of narrative dissonance to everything else going on. Aside from the fact that I (for one) just literally don't care, because it's trying to explain an aspect of the setting, magic, which did not need an explanation, it makes everything else feel cheesy through the lens of its explanation. Like with May's personality, it's a long con bait-and-switch twist in the story that changes something that originally got me invested into something completely different.